Page 1646 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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model we can use, and that is the value again of moving to a committee phase, where the government, members of the community, academics and experts may also come forward with alternative suggestions. That may be a more suitable place to have these decisions taken, because I am not absolutely convinced that the Auditor-General is the right person. I may be convinced, though, that the auditor is the right person; that is a discussion that is out there to be had. But I think there is value in taking this off to a committee.
I would also like to note that I support the suggestion of a blackout in the run-up to an election. We have the great advantage in the ACT of having a fixed election date. Voters in the ACT probably value that as much as do any of the political parties in this place. Having a specific blackout period is warranted and we support that. Again, we just need to look at the provisions around that to make sure that again we do not interfere with necessary government work during that time.
They are my comments at this stage. As I said, the Greens support this bill in principle. Whilst in a way we should not need to have this legislation, the activities of the last 12 months have demonstrated that we do, and the question now is to make sure that we get this right. I look forward to further discussions about this in what will no doubt continue to be a feisty debate.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.20): There is just one simple question that the Chief Minister failed to answer in his 20-minute tirade, and that is: does he believe in the principle that is outlined in the objectives—that public funds should not be used for advertising or other communications for party political purposes?
No matter how much scorn he throws or how many adjectives he uses, he does not answer the fundamental question: do you believe in not wasting taxpayers’ money? More importantly, do you believe in not using it for party political purposes? The fact that the Chief Minister does not go to that point, does not address it, does not even speak about it, simply shows that he is very happy to spend taxpayers’ money to his own ends.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.20), in reply: I thank members for their contributions. I thank in particular the Greens for their support in principle of this bill, and we will be happy to support the motion that Mr Rattenbury will be moving to refer the bill to a committee.
It is interesting that one of the points the Chief Minister harped on about was the Auditor-General. Of course, this is the model that was put forward by the federal Labor government; it was one of their election promises. If you read from their federal guidelines on campaign advertising, it says:
Government information and advertising campaigns with expenditure in excess of $250,000 must be reviewed by the Auditor-General, who will report on the proposed campaign’s compliance with these Guidelines.
Presumably the letters from the Chief Minister will be going to the Rudd government to tell them how inappropriate this is for the Auditor-General to look at. But we need
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